Wednesday, May 23, 2007

too much sun will burn

mr 'tourist guide', hung, told me, "you've not been to vietnam, if you don't go to halong bay".

wokeigh ... halong bay, here i come!

the vietnamese name of halong bay - "vinh ha long" means "bay of the descending dragon". legend has it that when the vietnamese were under attack in some ancient time, the jade emperor sent mother dragon + her child dragons down to earth to their aid, impeding the progress of the enemy.

the mythical monsters a.k.a mrs dragon + co, in geological terms, is a combination of the wind + water that weathered the porous limestone over millions of years to create the bizarre outcrops colonised by stunted + twisted pokok2 + kayu-kayan. apparently, some plants that have adapted to live on halong's islands are found nowhere else in the world.

halong bay is like a labyrinth. it'll take more than 3 days at sea to cover the whole of halong bay, but i could only afford 5 hours.

maybe when i've made my dosh, i'll come again to explore the dense cluster of 1,969 islands + islets.

the dog looking after halong bay's cluster of islands + islets

wegra the jais undercover skodeng orang pak toh

*snigger*

the trong mai islet (above) or in vietnamese, hon trong mai, means male + female chicken island. i read, it was named so because the two islands look like a pair of chicken lovingly playing with each other above the sea. what's interesting, the islet has been christened by the struggling laymen as the 'fighting cocks'.

demmit! we don't share the same knowledge, we don't think alike, do we? before i go anywhere, remind me to pick your brain so that i don't leave anything out ... e.g. screaming GOOODDDD MOOOORRRNINGGGG VIETNAMMMMMMM!!!!

why oh why didn't i think of that ...

queer ranter

really?! oh wow!!! do you know how to speak vietnamese then? i didn't pick the language because i was able to survive on english + broken french. i wish i did ...

Just south of China in the far northeast corner of Vietnam is a bay of nearly 2,000 islands. It is in many ways the cradle of Vietnamese civilization, with an archaeological record 25,000 years old. Fishermen have lived on these islands and waters for millennia. Some villagers rarely set foot on land, spending most of their lives in boats and floating homes.

Halong Bay is also one of the most beautiful places on earth, which is why hordes of tourists hop on junk boats made to look old and they cruise those islands, stopping hither and yon to explore caves and mountains. You can imagine how good the seafood is — and you’d be wrong. It’s even better. True, the life on land isn’t so pretty and the town is a bit of a pit. But you’d be hard-pressed to find better crab or shrimp or saltwater fish than what you’ll eat every day in Halong Bay.

If you get your hands on December’s issue of Gourmet, you can learn more about Halong Bay in my feature, “On the Waterfront.” I haven’t even seen it yet (it takes a while for my copy to get here, and the issues on the shelves around here are always at least two months old). If Halong City is ever on your itinerary, be sure to try the local seafood restaurants on the street heading uphill, around the corner from the post office. Cross the bay to the “other” Halong City to check out the seafood market.